Roden 1/48 OV-1D By Mike Whye

Welcome to the build-up review of Roden’s 1/48 OV-1D kit, No. 413. You might recall that I wrote a pre-build review in Internet Modeler’s February 2006 issue which included a look at the real aircraft’s history. I commented then that Roden has come a long way in its quality, something I still believe, although during the construction I found a few pitfalls (what kit doesn’t have some?) but overall this is a very fine kit of a great airplane.

Soooo….let’s begin. First off, I decided to build the #1 option in the kit--a gull-gray OV-1D flown by the U.S. Army 2nd Military Intelligence Squadron in Saudi Arabia in 1991.

Although this wasn’t typical for every step, right away in constructing the cockpit (Steps 1-7), I ran into trouble. Step one, the preparation of the instrument panels for the pilot and systems operator, calls out for Part 3F, the systems operator’s console. However, my kit had no Part 3F; in fact, it had no F sprue. I looked at the descriptions of the sprues on pages 2 and 3 of the instructions and saw no F sprue illustrated there!

Now I was scratching my head and tearing apart the box. No F sprue. No diagram of an F sprue and although the instructions note the use of Parts 3F and 4F, no other F parts (such as 1F and 2F, whatever they could be) are anywhere to be seen in the instructions.

I emailed Roden and got a prompt reply that an F sprue would be sent to me. That was in February. Weeks went by and nothing arrived in the mail. I emailed Roden again and was told the part had been mailed just a few days earlier. Fine. I waited and…..nothing. So I set aside the model and hoped.

After some months went by, I finally decided to just fabricate the systems operator’s console (Part 3F) as best as possible out of sheet styrene and just not worry about Part 4F, an instrument box that sat right in front of the systems operator’s ejection seat. I figure if some rivet counter takes me to task for the missing Part 4F, I’ll just tell him what crew chiefs told the pilots and systems operators at times--it’s out for maintenance.

(A note here: a friend bought the same kit and it did have the F sprue, so I will believe that the fact that my F sprue was missing was a freak oversight).

Otherwise, I followed the instructions when assembling the cockpit although I left out the ejection seats so they would not be a bother to cover when painting the entire aircraft later.

Now here’s a note about something that I learned from the experience of building the kit….before you build the ejection seats (step 6), shave about 1/16 - 1/8-inch (2-3 mm) off the bottom of the ejection seat pieces 31C, 32C, 37C, 17C and 11C. Otherwise, you’ll build the seats and learn later that they’re too tall for the top portion of the canopy to fit properly, causing some aggravation. So, save yourself the worry of how to shorten an assembled ejection seat by handling this matter now.

The ejection seats lack seatbelts and although I was tempted to scratch-build those, I decided since this is to be an out-of-the-box build-up review, I’m not going to add anything to what came in the kit (other than my replacement for Part 3F).

If you want seats with seatbelts, here are your options:

1. Make the seatbelts yourself out of whatever you want, thin sheet styrene, typing paper, masking tape, etc; or
2. Buy the True Details cockpit set for the Mohawk ($10.98 MSRP). Sure, it’s said to be for an OV-1A but being there are no instrument panels (which are the main differences between the cockpits of the various Mohawk), this after-market set will do for any of the Roden Mohawks; or
3. Buy the Cobra cockpit set for the OV-1D ($18 MSRP) which does have the D’s instrument panels

Besides having seats with seatbelts, these after-market cockpit sets show the rear cabin wall as having a padded surface whereas the Roden piece (Part 2D) is completely smooth which is not accurate.

I next assembled the landing gear as directed and set them aside without putting on their wheels yet. This is something I usually do toward the end of constructing any aircraft kit.

Then I built the exhaust pipes for the turboprop engines. Each has three pieces: a left side and a right side of the pipe plus a set of turbine blades at the far forward part of the pipe. At first I assembled only the left and right sides and used a long round thin file to remove the seam that shows not only on the inside of the bottom of the pipe but also on the top, exterior of the pipe, a bit of which can be seen once inserted into the engine housing. Occasionally during my work on the pipes, I put in a small amount of super-glue as fill when needed and sanded that down. I then sprayed the pipes and turbine blades with Testors Metallizer Exhaust before gluing the turbine blades onto the pipes.

The pipes were then set aside for later installation.

Now came the tailplane. I assembled everything here according to the directions but did not glue the vertical stabilizers to the horizontal ones. Instead, I sprayed the de-icer boot areas black; a few days later, I masked those with frosted tape and sprayed everything gloss gull gray (FS 16440). Once the gray was dry, I removed the masks and set everything aside for assembly later.

It was sometime during this assembly that I noticed what appears to be a trim tab actuator housing atop the right horizontal stabilizer; however, no such housing is atop the left stabilizer. Instead, the housing is on the bottom of the left one and that sent me reeling, thinking I had made a major goof. For about half an hour, I wondered how I was going to tear apart the horizontal stabs to make them so the housings are on top of both stabilizers. Believe me, I felt sick.

But the more I looked at the stabs, the more I realized I could not have assembled them any other way. Then I wondered if Grumman, the manufacturer of the real aircraft, had a method in how the horizontal stabilizers were made. Sure enough, after scurrying around the Internet, I came across a photo of a real OV-1’s tailplane on Cybermodeler, a photo showing the housing is atop the right stabilizer and below the left one!

Apparently Grumman decided to save money by making one type of stabilizer rather than making two sets of stabilizers that were mirror images of each other……and Roden accurately copied Grumman’s technique. Kudos to Roden!

All right, now it was onto the wings which went together well but the wingtip parts, which are unique to the OV-1D, needed a fair amount of sanding to blend well with the rest of the wing. As with the stabilizers, I sprayed the de-icer boots and the wing walk areas black, let that dry for a day or two, masked off the respective areas and sprayed the wings gloss gull gray.

Normally I would not paint stabilizers and wings before gluing them to the fuselage of any model but in test fitting these, I found them to fit so snug, so perfectly, that I felt like I was working with the ultimate snap-tite model. So I decided that painting them ahead of the final assembly, which made masking the black areas very easy, was the way to go on this kit.

I should note that the decal sheet does provide for walkway stripes but for years I have been painting mine and then masking them with thin strips of tape before painting the other color(s) of the wing. I do that ‘cause I don’t like working with thin little strips of decals.

Assembly of the drop tanks and SLAR pod involved sanding some seams but nothing out of the ordinary. I didn’t like the two-part arms that attach the SLAR pod to the fuselage because if you assemble them at the wrong angle, and that is a very good possibility, the SLAR pod won‘t square up with the fuselage properly to the eye.

There are three types of wing racks so be sure to note which goes where AND….and this is a big AND…be aware that there are three types of sway braces too, each type for its own wing rack. Also note that sway braces are fine fine fine and you need to be careful when trimming them off the sprues.

Finally, it came time to assemble the fuselage. I glued the instrument panels into the left fuselage half and then the cockpit (still minus the seats). The instructions note to glue in the nose strut at this point and I thought, why glue on the nose strut and have it sticking out all the time, just begging to be snapped off. Well, if you read through the instructions, you’ll see that there is no good time later to glue in the nose strut so do it now and be as careful as you can when handling the model as you continue to build it.

The instructions also call for putting on the canopy pieces now but I chose to postpone this until near the end of everything.

Knowing that the model would be tail heavy, I decided to experiment in seeing how much weight to add to its front. I taped the fuselage halves together and dry-fitted the wings and stabilizers. I then placed small lead weights in the cockpit until I could tell the model would rest properly on its landing gear.

Setting aside those weights, I removed the wings and tailplane and super-glued the weights in place behind the cockpit wall (if you want to avoid doing what I did, I suggest buying lead weights from Terry Dean who already has the proper weight figured out and shaped properly). Then I glued the fuselage halves together.

Next, I attacked the nose cap (Part 15G). I’ve seen some lenses covering the front sensors have a red tint to them and wanting to duplicate that, I painted the inside of the clear plastic nose cap with Tamiya clear red paint. Then, on the nose cap exterior, I dabbed on white glue with a brush, covering the lenses of the forward lights plus the sensor’s glass panels; these would serve as masks for when I painted the entire model which was soon to come.

Later, I sprayed black paint around the central vertical stabilizer and where the Mohawk’s unique upper fuselage walkway is. Once the black paint was dry, I masked those areas with frosted tape.

I sprayed red paint around the airbrake wells and the insides of the airbrake doors. When that paint was dry, I dry-fitted the airbrake doors into a closed position and, after masking the cockpit, sprayed Testors Model Master gloss gull gray (No. 1729) on the fuselage which was set aside to dry for a few days. When the paint was dry, I removed the various masks and popped the dried white glue off the nose cap by gently lifting them with the point of a very sharp X-acto blade.

Now I entered into the final stretch by gluing on the wings and tailplane elements. When building up the propellers, I remembered to position the blades in a feathered position, which is how Mohawks’ props were set when the planes were on the ground.

As for the landing gear, I heartily recommend visiting Cybermodeler and studying the pictures before you attempt to do anything with the main gear to familiarize yourself with which struts go where. Otherwise, you might find the drawings on the instructions confusing.

Then I added the various antenna, wing racks, fuel tanks, air scoops, the SLAR pod, landing gear doors, wheels, windshield wipers, boarding steps and so on. I popped off the airbrake doors, touched up any areas on them that needed it and glued them into their open positions.

At this point, I put on the decals that came with the kit and they went on well. Although I had used gloss gull gray, I still used my technique of applying a mix of white glue and water to where each decal would go and wiping away the excess with a damp soft cloth, usually a handkerchief. I did mess up one of the serial numbers on the tail so I substituted another set from my OV-1A kit….yes, some rivet counter will notice but I’m building this for myself and I’m okay with it.

The next day, I sprayed the entire model with Testors Dullcote to lessen its shine.

Although I have sometimes weathered my models, I chose to let this one appear as though it was fairly fresh from the factory. Well, sort of….with some burnt sienna and white oil paints, I streaked the insides of the engine exhaust tubes to show some exhaust stains.

Finally, before painting the canopy pieces, I dry-fitted them and realized I had to complete a task to make the upper canopy piece (Part 1G) fit properly: grind a very small bit off the top of the rear cabin bulkhead (Part 2D).

Once I was satisfied with how everything fit, I glued the ejection seats to the cockpit floor.

Then I painted the canopy pieces with a regular brush. When they were dry, I glued the windshield into place and then the upper canopy piece. As for the side canopy panels (Parts 16G and 17G), I glued the co-pilot’s shut and that took some doing as I had to brace the inside with the blunt end of a paint brush while pushing up the outside with a fingertip….and somehow balancing that precariously while adding a touch of glue to the seams. I left the pilot’s hatch open but must say that if I had wanted it closed too, based upon just trying to dry-fit it closed, that would have been a rough task.

I’m going to refer back to my pre-build review for a moment and note once more that the entry hatches do not stay open as Roden depicts; see the photograph of a real OV-1D.

I wish that Roden had also supplied a one-piece canopy that incorporated the windshield, upper canopy piece and the side panels so anyone could have a sealed cockpit without losing a bunch of gray matter.

Conclusions

All in all, Roden’s 1/48 OV-1D kit is a good one. Some snags exist but they aren’t anything that can’t be overcome by thinking things through and test-fitting various pieces. It’s a kit that’s not for beginners, although I’ll easily recommend to anyone who’s had modeling experience and uses patience.

Thanks to Roden for the review sample.